Victoria's Mental Health Services

What's New

Ministerial Communique - Victoria's Priorities for Mental Health

The Minister for Mental Health provides an update to Victorians on the progress of the activities and initiatives that have been undertaken or are underway against each of the six priorities of the plan.

Enhanced Community Mental Health Initiative

The Victorian Government is seeking submissions from State Government funded Mental Health Community Support Service organisations for the Enhanced Community Mental Health Initiative.

The Government is committed to enhancing the capabilities of these funded organisations and is allocating more than $4 million of capital funding to ensure facility safety, deliver improvements for consumers, carers and staff, and innovation, such as co-location and integration with other organisations.

The closing date for receiving submissions is 4pm, Friday 6 February 2015.

Revised Mental Health Act (MHA) forms

Two of the MHA forms, MHA 101 and MHA 131 have been revised to improve their operation.

The reverse side of the new MHA 101 Assessment Order form has been amended to add a definition for ‘authorised person’ to clearly identify those able to take a person to a designated mental health service. Part C of the new MHA 131 Informed consent to electroconvulsive treatment (ECT) form has been amended to more clearly to when informed consent is required to a treatment change. The revised forms are easily identified by the Oct 2014 date on the foot on the front page.

The paper stock of the current versions of both forms (dated July 2014) can continue to be used as correct.

Victorian eating disorders strategy

The Victorian Government launched Victoria’s first Eating disorders strategy on Thursday 9 October 2014.

The Victorian eating disorders strategy (the strategy) considers eating disorders in the broader sociocultural context, and sets a joint agenda for working across the connected areas of prevention, early identification, treatment and support for people with eating disorders of all ages, stages and genders, and their families and carers.

The strategy promotes collaboration across sectors including primary health, mental health and specialist eating disorders services to provide more integrated and responsive services to people with eating disorders.

Acute Community Intervention Service Guidelines

The ACIS guidelines replace the Psychiatric crisis assessment and treatment services: guidelines for service provision (CAT guidelines). ACIS extends the former CAT approach to include interventions that are packaged together to provide a unified approach to meet the needs of the client and, where required, their families.

The summary document outlines an overview of ACIS and how to initiate an ACIS response. This document is important to a range of stakeholders, including: police and ambulance services; child protection and out of home care providers; and; General Practitioners (GPs) who often provide the first response for people who are acutely unwell.

The strategy and implementation plans provide clear direction about future workforce development strategies and actions that will help Victoria's mental health workforce to respond to the significant reforms currently taking place.

New era for mental health community support services

The Victorian Government introduced changes to the delivery of mental health community support services (MHCSS) across the state on 1 August 2014.

Twenty MHCSS now deliver flexible support packages, new local intake assessment and a revitalised youth residential rehabilitation program for people with mental illness and psychiatric disability in Victoria.

People will access MHCSS via intake service in their local catchment area, making it easier for individuals to move through the mental health community support system and connect to other important health and community support services they may need.

Treatment will be tailored to individual needs and preferences, and recognises the role of families and carers in supporting recovery.

Mental Health Act 2014 starts 1 July

From 1 July, Victoria has a new Mental Health Act.

The Mental Health Act 2014 (the Act) is a key element to the government's mental health reform agenda, and places individuals and carers at the centre of mental health treatment and care. The Act also recognises the important role of families and carers in supporting their family members in their recovery journey.

At the heart of these reforms is a supported decision-making model that promotes strong communication between practitioners, patients and their families and carers. This means that people with a mental illness will be supported to make and participate in treatment decisions and to have their views and preferences considered and respected.

The Act promotes and enables voluntary treatment in preference to compulsory treatment wherever possible. Where compulsory treatment is necessary, it will be provided in the least restrictive and intrusive manner possible.

The Department has been working with mental health services and other stakeholders to prepare for the transition to the new legislation.

You can view a video message and read a Communique from the Minister for Mental Health, the Hon. Mary Wooldridge MP here.

Call for Submissions: Victoria's first Independent Mental Health Advocacy Service

The Victorian Government has made a commitment to provide advocacy services for patients subject to Victoria's new Mental Health Act 2014 (the Act).

The Department of Health is looking for an entity that can bring relevant capacity, expertise, quality and innovation to the establishment of a 'first of type' statewide Independent Mental Health Advocacy Service and is committed to delivering high quality advocacy services.

The aim of the advocacy services to be provided is to assist patients to participate in decision-making related to their mental health treatment, care and recovery with the goal of improving their capacity to live as full a life as possible.

The new service will be independent and will operate during business hours. It will provide face-to-face, individual advocacy for patients subject to the Act in rural Victoria and metropolitan Melbourne and also offer a telephone triage service. The focus of the advocacy will be mental health treatment, care and recovery, not general advocacy, and the type of advocacy to be provided will be representational or instructed advocacy.

The process is open to entities that do not provide (and in the future are not likely to provide) mental health services.
Closing date for submissions is: 2pm Thursday 17 July 2014.

For further information and to request a copy of the Call for Submissions contact:

The framework, Providing a safe environment for all, is central to the Victoria Government's commitment to reduce restrictive practices and provide mental health services that are safe places for all people accessing treatment and care, their carers and families and those who work with them. The framework has been developed as part of the Reducing Restrictive Interventions project and will assist services in developing a local response to reduce the use of seclusion and restraint through a culture of safety and recovery.

The framework is underpinned by a comprehensive review of the research and evidence relation to reducing restrictive interventions.

Nursing observation is the purposeful gathering of information from people receiving care to inform clinical decision making. It is central to nursing practice, multifaceted and critical to good care. Consideration of nursing observation is complicated by the various understandings of what is meant by the term within service policies and in the literature. This nursing observation guideline is intended to provide clinicians, services and service users with clear direction regarding the role of, and best practice approaches to, the conduct of nursing observation of people receiving care in Victorian mental health inpatient units.

Clinical Catchments

Current catchment arrangements for public clinical mental health services are not optimal. A number of possible options for reconfiguring metropolitan public clinical mental health service catchments and associated health service auspicing are outlined in a consultation paper, Clinical mental health service catchments, August 2013. These options are not final and may be adjusted based on the outcomes of consultations. They are intended to support discussion about the opportunities for change and system improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the progress of public mental health services in implementing the Strengthening consumer participation in Victoria's public mental health service: action plan 2009 (the action plan). This report provides an opportunity for mental health services to compare levels of participation, examples of best practice and consumer participation initiatives.
This report uses the survey's findings to acknowledge evidence of good progress and identify where improvement is needed to increase consumer participation in clinical mental health services. The survey findings will also be used to help inform future directions for consumer participation programs and consumer involvement strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the progress of public mental health services in implementing Caring together - an action plan for carer participation in Victorian public mental health service. This report provides an opportunity for mental health services to compare levels of participation, examples of best practice and carer participation initiatives.
This report uses the survey's findings to acknowledge evidence of good progress and identify where improvement is needed to increase carer participation in clinical mental health services. The survey findings will also be used to help inform future directions for carer participation programs and carer involvement strategies.

The aim of the Carer Support Fund (CSF) is to assist carers in their role of caring for a person with a mental illness by providing funding to assist to promote and sustain the caring relationship and improve the wellbeing of carers. The Carers Support Fund is administered by the Victorian Mental Health Carers Network. All applications are made at and approved by the local mental health service who then forward individual applications to the Victorian Mental Health Carers Network for processing.

Consumer Partnership Forum

The Minister for Mental Health (the Minister) invited Victorian clinical and non-clinical mental health services to nominate a consumer workforce member to engage directly in a new Mental Health Consumer Partnership approach. The Victorian Government is committed to a program of important reform for mental health that includes a strong consumer and carer voice. As a consequence, the Department of Health (the department), Mental Health Drugs and Regions Division (MHDR) have established the Consumer Partnership Dialogues (Consumer Partnership) to facilitate collaboration across the Department, the consumer workforce and the peak, the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council. The regular dialogues will establish an ongoing opportunity for engagement with the consumer community in relation to the implementation of mental health initiatives to improve outcomes for mental health consumers and their families.

New mental health legislation is a central element in the Victorian Government’s agenda for mental health reform.

The government has undertaken extensive public consultations to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Mental Health Act 1986 and people with a mental illness, families, carers, clinicians and service providers expect of mental health legislation for Victoria. These consultations were extremely useful, with the community and government working in partnership to shape what a new Mental Health Act in Victoria could look like.